Editor’s Note: For a little more than three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,938 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. 0.8% doesn’t sound amazing, but relative to what else you get on the internet?
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. ESPN’s SP+ is heavily used in making college football picks of all kinds, and FPI is used in making conference championship futures picks.
As we’ve done the last few days, we’ll start with the bowls and then do today’s college basketball.
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: South Carolina vs. North Carolina
Head coaches with poorer bowl records than their opponents are now 7-16-2 against the spread in bowls this season (if you count interim coaches as worse than head coaches in tiebreakers). Shane Beamer’s never coached a bowl before.
Pick: South Carolina +12.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Music City Bowl: Purdue vs. Tennessee
Jeff Brohm is 3-1 in his career in bowls, which might be holding this line back a bit, especially given how when Tennessee gets going, it really gets going.
Pick: Tennessee -7.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Peach Bowl: Michigan State vs. Pittsburgh
Kenny Pickett isn’t playing, and yes, that hurts Pitt, but I’m not sure it’s been acknowledged that this Pitt team is actually pretty good, and this Michigan State team is one weird result against Michigan away from being a national afterthought.
Pick: Pittsburgh +3.5 (-113). Low confidence.
Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State vs. Wisconsin
Paul Chryst has one of the most successful bowl records in the FBS. That might be a little overblown here.
Pick: Arizona State +7 (-110). Low confidence.
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St. Joseph’s @ Richmond
We’re switching into conference basketball season, and with it our attempt to try something new (since our last attempt at betting conference games went terribly). We like Richmond here, partially because they like the three and St. Joe’s can’t defend it. The risk is that the same possibility will happen on the opposite end, but either way, with a lot of threes going up, the margin could and should get rather wide.
Pick: Richmond -12 (-110). Low confidence.
